>>PREVIEW
UNNATURAL HISTORY
Ryan Wolters
STATE & LAKE
Ryan Ford and Tyler Los-Jones
Reception Thursday, May 17
+15 Window Project Space
(Epcor Centre)
The New Gallery’s +15 window space is currently the gallery's only operational space. After facing an eviction notice, its temporary space in Eau Claire Market opens tomorrow with Through the Gilded Looking Glass by Brendan Tang. On display within this space is Ryan Wolters’s collaged work, entitled Unnatural History.
Wolters’s collages are a combination of horror, science fiction and fatalistic black humour/satire. Using the Dadaist Max Ernst as a primary influence, Wolters’s digital collages are to be viewed as cautionary tales against the dangers of perceived safety and a critique on the fragility of common moralistic ideas. In Wolters’s collaged worlds, gas pumps attack automobiles, intestines are viewed on televisions and embryos sleep in the interior space of a car top. Illustrations from Second World War advertising are used as idealistic safe fictions. Combined with sci-fi imagery, these fictions are anything but safe. Yet, because of the period of the imagery used, they still seem naive and non-threatening. With the recent discovery of the new, earth-like "habitable" planet, how can one help but have a renewed interest in the pop culture imagery of UFOs and the idea of having large brains take up residence in penthouses?
On display at the Marion Nicoll Gallery +15 space is Peter Redecopp’s Spiral Series: Masking tape Drawings 5-7. His work involves using repetition and accumulation to create drawings out of masking tape. These masking tape drawings are part of a larger body of work concerned with the form of a spiral – of significance to Redecopp as it is a universal symbol that predates the circle in the human consciousness. The spiral is a fundamental form of mark making and, as a symbol and in nature, it is all-pervasive. Redecopp has applied the symbol of the spiral to a variety of media including ink, stamps, GPS trackers and a midi program. When looking at this work, I am reminded of Robert Smithson's monumental earthwork Spiral Jetty (1970) located on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Using black basalt rocks and earth from the site, the artist created a coil composed of 6500 tons of material 1500 feet long and 15 feet wide that stretches counterclockwise into the translucent, red water. Redecopp’s Masking Tape Drawing #5 from the Spiral Series contains a total of 20,240 feet of masking tape, a feat that is miniscule when compared to Smithson’s Spiral Jetty but is impressive nonetheless.
Inspired by a recent trip to Chicago, artists Ryan Ford, Tyler Los-Jones and Ryan Gustafson created the site-specific work State & Lake within Stride’s +15 window space. Using boarded wood planks (constructed wood planks made from found wood) and flashing lights, the artists have attempted to recreate their impression of Chicago’s metro stations. Built within the window space, these artists have created a work that plays off notions of travel and the fleeting nature of memory. The +15 window space was chosen for its high volumes of pedestrian traffic. The transient nature of the space acts like a busy transit station, as people shuffle through this space seemingly unaware of their surroundings. A built-in timer allows the flashing lights to go off during transit’s peak hours of 4 to 6 p.m. With a looming transit strike, State & Lake takes on supplementary meaning. It points to the inherent flaws in Calgary’s public transportation system and infrastructure and the possibility of coming commuter chaos.
Another project that has been inspired by Chicago is the newly created 809 Gallery. After visiting 65 Grand in Chicago (a gallery in a kitchen), Ryan Ford and Tyler Los-Jones converted a garage into a gallery space and held a silent auction on April 27. Funds received from this opening will be put towards future openings. Their next opening is slated for May 25 and is a solo show by the Truck +15 window artist, Mikhail Miller-Lajeunesse. |
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